Mail Merge

[Anne Girling]

I'm using Windows XP and I've set up a mail merge
document with contacts in Word (2002) and addresses in an
excel file as the source data but for some reason when I
try to mail merge the Company name is not shown in the
mail merge word letter. I did have difficulty in adding
company as a merge field in my word doc but chose insert
merge fields and changed option from database fields to
address fields to find the company field and then
inserted this into my document. If you leave the option
as database fields you are not given company as an choice.

Also when mail merging the document it does not mail
merge in chronological order, it appears to be a random
order?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Anne,

I'm using Windows XP and I've set up a mail merge
document with contacts in Word (2002) and addresses in an
excel file as the source data but for some reason when I
try to mail merge the Company name is not shown in the
mail merge word letter. I did have difficulty in adding
company as a merge field in my word doc but chose insert
merge fields and changed option from database fields to
address fields to find the company field and then
inserted this into my document. If you leave the option
as database fields you are not given company as an choice.

Mmmm, I'm not sure exactly how you're inserting the merge
"target" information. Are you trying to use the "Address
block"? And working in the "Wizard" task pane? If yes, then
you may need to
- Click "More items"
- Click "Match fields"
- Select the field name that holds your company information
equal to the appropriate "address field" on the left

the other way is to simply use the "More items..." list to
insert the different things individually.

Also when mail merging the document it does not mail
merge in chronological order, it appears to be a random
order?

By chronological order you mean the order in which the data
rows were typed into Excel? Word might be trying to force
some kind of "address" sort order on the data. If you go
back a step and click "Edit Recipient list" you can sort by
any field by clicking on the column header.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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